Words fail me.

[Happy-ness]

Hi

I am writing after a long arduous recovery attempt.

I have one a long way from my very anorexic days when my head constantly chattered to me about fat and how to not eat, weight and constant calorie calculations. For over 30yrs I lived like that and then one day met a therapist who I seemed to get in with and gradually with their support I made changes. I got stronger and my brain started to function better and I was able to give time to my children without guilt that sitting around made me fat.

I had realised I was in an unhappy marriage to someone controlling who treated me in the way I was as a child. I had grown up knowing no different. Because of abuse of every nature I accepted it as normal. Removing myself from my anorexic behaviours put me back in touch with the real underlying issues. I really believed I was getting the right help and support and was hopeful for the future. I left my marriage and I was hopeful in time I would be able to find work and start again.

Gradually over time I realised I'd done it again. I had let others tell me what to do - eat and get better. I believed them that people can recover and move on. But over time I had also realised that the abuse I suffered from multiple males in the family and ignored by the females because they couldn't handle it because it had happened to them as children too meant I was trapped. Networks of abusers like this are paedophile rings and need to keep you unknowingly in it. You in part attract it cos you know know different and they will dress themselves up as nice and living to groom you in. My leaving my marriage just meant they had to up the ante and I have been followed and watched and even people who acted like my friends turned out to be involved in some huge cover up.

I learnt that anorexia was protection for me, like that I was no threat to the ring because anorexia keeps you dissociated from the truth behind it. Had you asked me 10yrs who had I been abused I would have said no. Recovery is a gradual process of realisation and some of it when you are not actively trying to recover.

I am currently unsupported, unheard, ignored just as I was as a child which lead to me making anorexia my own best friend.

My advice is to approach recovery carefully and had I known back then what I do now I would have thought twice.

Getting help from professionals you think wow thanks- all that training you will know how to help, you could help me escrow this bring watched ring but then I started reading more and more. They don't know answers in fact many people who end up working in mental health do so to make them feel better about crap that has happened to them shifting their focus on things they can't change in their own unhappy lives by making you think they are wise and if they help me I will be ok. Often they will learn valuable information for their own growth so they can get better because they are secretly fucked up or to help others using your knowledge. All this is well documented in books but not aimed at patients so you have to look in the right place.

Yes they get paid and paid realitivly well and learn from you, help themselves and you get no thanks, no pay and in my case end up in s harder place than I was before. Not all bad am stronger and wiser and hence why I am here now saying only a recovered anorexic will get it and that's hard. I think I am the only almost there one.

[joanna21]

I dont know what I can say that will help or make you feel better other than you wow you are a strong woman who has clearly dealt with a lot of bad stuff.I hope you can continue your recovery but can see that anorexia seems like the friend you need to deal with all the other stuff.I believe there are professionals that can and want to help but due to the complexity of the disease it is not easy or quick.xxx

[Happy-ness in reply to joanna21]

I have had help. It was help that out me in touch with the underlying stuff as I trusted that eating, not purging and over exercising would make life better. I am stringer and wiser for the experience but if I thought anorexia made me isolated and misunderstood then I wasn't seeing it for the scapegoat it was I was already isolated and misunderstood. Anorexia was my salvation. I beg you to all look at your anorexia. Do you hate it? Or is it how others make you feel fit bring anorexic that you hate or makes you feel bad. I heard so many times your parents must be worried sick. Maybe they were but not they concern for me but concern fur whatever I I had buried underneath the anorexia- the truth of abuse and neglect, gaslighting which is highly manipulative and used to destabilise and cause confusion and something the anorexia could be blamed for.

Once I beat the odds and hit a grip of my anorexic ways and saw the truth underneath I started to look at how to help others. I read a lot about therapists. Part of the job is to reflect so they reflect back to you your experiences and well given I had abuse, being ignored, secrets hidden, lots of talking behind my back to keep me out of the loop that seems to be what I got. Mind games, playing god with my life and asking them only got me discharged lol I don't think anyone's expected me to get well enough to see they it all. But then again if everyone knew what I did there wouldn't be any need for their jobs-whoops- tricky one:like I say before seeking help read a lot and not from self help section! They only tell you what they want you to know there.

It's a fascinating journey and am going on the next bit.

I am strong anorexia taught me to be, she taught me survival, self preservation, I can overcome innate hunger so am unstoppable and invincible I never feared anorexia would kill me it was there to protect me until a time I could face the underlying stuff and grow up. Anorexia doesn't want to hurt you. Sometimes I just knew I had to eat something and always knew what be it carb, sugar or salty and on those occasions I did what I felt I had to do no matter how hard it was to eat it. Sometimes it gets out of hand but you need to follow gut instinct if you hear eat something do it doesn't mean you have to every day but I think it got me by. That and deep rooted faith I knew what I was doing somehow.

Ever wonder why anorexics in inpatient care get real eased after certain weight gain? It is because if you kept going you might see the truth. If you go home ( to situation or environment that made you turn to anorexia in the first place) you relapse stay in cycle and repeat unknowingly over and over again. Ignorance is bliss and what anorexia did was preserve my sanity to a degree because the underlying stuff I know is unbearable.